Poverty stalks Sutton Mine workers

FORMER mine workers at Sutton Mine near Great Dyke, in Zvimba South, Mashonaland West province, are battling to make ends meet since the mine was closed in 2009.The mine is situated a few kilometres from Mapinga along Mutorashanga-Guruve Road.

BY NHAU MANGIRAZI

Sutton Mine was under Zimbabwe Alloys and the youth in the area say they are facing a bleak future.

Twenty-year-old Ronald Kamau said they were pinning their hopes of getting jobs on foreign investors.

“After finishing Ordinary Levels, we hope to be employed, but for us it’s a pipe dream,” he said.

Kamau is among the 53 students, who sat for O’ Level examinations at a local school last year. Life is tough in the poverty-wrecked mine compound.

“We have no future plans for our children,” Martin Murenga, a former miner said.

The former workers claim that they have not been paid terminal benefits by their former employer.

A local teacher said: “Due to poverty, prostitution is prevalent among young girls and married women as they battle to make ends meet.”

He said the former mine workers are failing to send their children to school.

However, another resident said their hope has been renewed, as a new investor was currently recruiting.

“We have new Chinese investors, who are recruiting some workers and we hope those better qualified can work,” Vengai Gwanzura said.

Government has made several claims that investors from China, Russia, among other countries, are keen to inject millions of dollars in the mining sector, including Sutton Mine and Mhangura.